Rhapsody in August (Hachigatsu no kyoshikyoku) in 35mm

In person: Anne McKnight, associate professor of Japanese and comparative literature

Kurosawa contemplates the horrors of the atomic bomb and the fear that permeated postwar Japan in this 1955 drama. Kiichi (Toshiro Mifune), an aging industrialist who owns a foundry, slowly loses his grip on reality as his fear of nuclear annihilation leads him to work toward relocating his family to Brazil. Alarmed by his paranoias, the family attempts to have him declared legally incompetent. I Live in Fear is a bleak, cautionary tale that explores dissonance of reality and delusion, driven by collective anxiety and instigated by isolation.

In person: Academy Collection and Preservation Executive Vice President Matt Severson

Kurosawa takes a picaresque approach in his adaptation of Maxim Gorky’s play of the same name from 1902, with a twist of humor and joy in underlying despair—the premise of the work. Set in the late Edo period, the film surveys the lives of a married couple and their tenants who are barely scraping by in a run-down tenement. Kurosawa uses the limited space of the tenement to create an intimate atmosphere for the ensemble to perform in with density that, in turn, resembles the anguish that each character carries within them.

A pair of hapless peasants—Tahei (Minoru Chiaki) and Matashichi (Kamatari Fujiwara)—uproot their lives to enlist with the rising Yamana clan. But their witless greed keeps landing them in unfortunate circumstances. Their ingenious plan to escape into a neighboring state draws the attention of General Rokurota Makabe (Toshiro Mifune). Hiding in disguise with Princess Yuki (Misa Uehara) of the fallen Akizuki clan, Makabe enlists the help of Tahei and Matashichi for passage into Hayakawa. This 16th-century period adventure of a princess evading capture from enemy forces served as inspiration for George Lucas’s space epic, Star Wars (1977).

In person: Rika Hiro, PhD, associate curator of Japanese art, LACMA

By 1960, Kurosawa had been in the film industry for half his life, excelling with contemporary stories (gendai-geki) and period pieces (jidai-geki) alike for Toho Studios, Daiei Film, and Shochiku Co. For The Bad Sleep Well, the filmmaker founded Kurosawa Films, knowing that the daring stylistic choices and topical themes he wanted to explore would cause friction with the majors. A neo-noir inspired by Shakespeare’s Hamlet, set in the corporate boardrooms of postwar Tokyo, Kurosawa’s nineteenth feature again casts the singular Toshiro Mifune at the center of a twisted cover-up that uncovers the sticky topics of corruption, shame, and greed.

Kurosawa’s first color film, and his initial collaboration with cinematographer Takao Saito, Dodes’ka-den is a heartbreaking, tender series of vignettes depicting the inhabitants of a settlement atop a landfill on the outskirts of Tokyo. Young Roku-chan is obsessed with trams, and his story bookends this complicated collection of lives lived on the margins of society. Based on Shugoro Yamamoto’s 1962 collection of stories The Town Without Seasons—Kurosawa’s third adaptation of the novelist’s work after Sanjuro (1962) and Red Beard (1965)—the filmmaker’s most loosely woven picture to date was also the first and only release by Yonki-no-kai Productions, a collective of four directors formed to support Kurosawa’s uncharacteristically idiosyncratic vision. Dodes’ka-den was nominated at the 44th Academy Awards in the category formerly known as Foreign Language Film, now International Feature Film, marking the tenth nomination for the country in this category.

Kingo Gondo (Toshiro Mifune), an executive of a prominent shoe business, mortgages his life to leverage an acquisition of the company. He is about to make the move when he receives a call from a man who has abducted his son, Jun, asking for a significant ransom. When it’s discovered that the son of Gondo’s loyal chauffeur was mistakenly kidnapped instead of Jun, he is still asked to pay, placing him in a moral dilemma. High and Low set a benchmark for the police procedural genre; influenced by noir, the film portrays the harsh realities and class divide of a country still grappling with the trauma of war.

Toshiro Mifune returns as the jaded, witty ronin Sanjuro in this sequel following the massive success of its predecessor, Yojimbo (1961), with a story adapted from a short novel by Shugoro Yamamoto. Sanjuro reluctantly joins a group of naive young samurai determined to fight against corrupt high officials, including their own lord chamberlain. Another masterful samurai classic by Kurosawa, Sanjuro challenges the earnestness of the samurai genre with this playful, accessible tale.

Kurosawa and Toshiro Mifune’s grand marathon of collaborations, which yielded numerous masterpieces, faces its finish line with a three-hour exploration of moral values and existential contemplation of humankind, led by another heartfelt performance by Mifune as a humble and compassionate clinic director, aka Red Beard. He, welcomes a young doctor, Yasumoto (Yuzo Kayama), into his small-town practice, only to discover that his protégé is arrogant, blinded by ambition, and reluctant to serve patients with low social standing. Kurosawa examines humanity with a thoughtful gaze, gently excavating the innate goodness of humankind through lessons from both life and death.

In person: Anne McKnight, associate professor of Japanese and comparative literature

In person: Academy Collection and Preservation Executive Vice President Matt Severson

In person: Kerim Yasar, associate professor of East Asian languages and cultures

“Any description of dreams in mere words cannot capture their expressive power.”

—Akira Kurosawa, 1993  

Inspired by a passage in a novel by Fjodor Dostoevsky “where he talks about dreams and the fact that they express our deepest fears and greatest hopes,” Dreams is a visually sumptuous entry in the latter half of the filmmaker’s career. Divided into eight chapters reflecting dreams from Kurosawa’s childhood through his late seventies, this impressionistic wonder was released, appropriately, the year after the director received an Honorary Oscar from the Academy “for cinematic accomplishments that have inspired, delighted, enriched, and entertained worldwide audiences and influenced filmmakers throughout the world.”

The 50-year career of one of history’s greatest filmmakers concludes with this heartwarming finale from 1993, dedicated to celebrated and respected writer and educator Hyakken Uchida. After Uchida announces his retirement from teaching, his students host an annual gathering, the “Not Yet Banquet” to celebrate his life and career. Composed of a series of poignant episodes, Kurosawa invites us into a world where beauty can be found, despite the inevitable pitfalls of reality, in genuine connection, loyalty, and respect for all living creatures.